


Aurora Borealis

by AlastorGrim



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: And RaZR, Angst, BAMF Dib Membrane, College AU, Competent Tallest, Competent Zim, Creature Hunting, DaPR Centric, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Eventual Smut, Excessive Lemon Demon, Ghost Hunting, Human Tallest Purple, Human Tallest Red, Humor, Identity Porn, Manipulative Tallest Purple, Multi, Possible Harem, Sort Of, With A Healthy Dose of ZaDR, Zim Is Baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-01-29 16:29:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21413203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlastorGrim/pseuds/AlastorGrim
Summary: It's been several years since Dib and Zim have been at each other's throats, and now they're in their second year of college. However, when two new Professors show up and take a special interest in the two of them, Zim starts acting strange. Like he knows something Dib doesn't. Zim warns him to stay away from the professor with an affinity for purple, but...Well, when had Dib ever done what he's told?
Relationships: Almighty Tallest Purple/Dib, Almighty Tallest Red/Zim, Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 191





	1. Beneath Apocalyptic Snowflakes

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. I needed this. So I made it. DaPR 4 evs.

"So we are sharing a dorm this year as well?"

"Yeah. Unless you changed your mind?" Dib mused as he hunted for his name on the key cards by the desk. Finding it next to Zim's, he grabbed both and turned around to hand it to him.

Zim snatched it out of his hands with a glare. "You know that Zim has not, Earth Boy."

Dib held his hands up in surrender, grinning as he hefted his bag over his shoulder and made to towards the elevator, Zim at his heels. "Alright, alright. I hear you." He pressed the button and hummed as the doors pinged open. "You at least didn't pick all the same classes as me like you did last year, did you?"

Crossing his arms, Zim scoffed. "I have plans outside of you, _Dib_. I am taking Earth history and bee-ness management."

"You're taking history? And _business management_?" Dib echoed incredulously. "Zim, no offense, but I'm very sure that you're going to hate both of those subjects. Like, the same way you hate the Taco Shack after GIR finishes Taco tuesday."

"I know what I have chosen and I am confident in my choices, human!" Zim proclaimed testily, crossing his arms and looking away in a huff. 

"Okay, whatever you say," Dib replied with his hands up in mock surrender. He adjusted his duffel bag over his shoulder, humming as the elevator opened. "What room layout do you think we got?"

"There are only two differing choices," Zim pointed out with a raised eyebrow.

"So pick one. A or B? We can bet on it." Dib smirked as he strode forward, looking for the tarnished plaque of 13C. Zim had gotten into some sort of obsessive trip over betting ever since the summer, where they'd gone to the beach and Zim had proceeded to lose at cards _multiple times_, to a homeless man. Eventually Dib had taken pity on Zim and drawn his attention to the beach itself instead of the homeless man conning the poor alien for everything he was worth. But ever since then, Zim had been obsessed with betting and the chances and odds of it.

Zim narrowed his eyes at Dib, opened his mouth to speak, only to startle when someone bumped into him. Whirling, Zim began to shout, "HEY! Watch where you're going, you..."

He trailed off even before Dib rushed back to grab his arm, eyes wide and expression stunned as he stared up at the person he'd bumped into. Dib looked up from Zim to see a tall, slender man dressed in a velvet vest with a blood red tie tucked underneath it. He had dark brown hair slicked back away from hooded, red eyes that glinted vaguely beneath the flourescent lights. 

"Sorry about that. He can get a little loud," Dib appeased with a nervous smile.

"So I noticed," The man replied in a low, silken tone, head tipped at Zim like he was the most fascinating specimen in the world. He smiled faintly as Zim edged further behind Dib, clutching at his jeans. "My apologies. I was not watching where I was going, Mister...?"

Zim said nothing, seemingly speechless for once in his life. Dib swallowed, unnerved, but took up the torch. "His name is Zim. And I'm Dib." He held out a hand. "It's nice to meet you."

Crimson eyes flickered down to Dib's outstretched hand and back up to meet his eyes. "Is it?" He didn't take Dib's hand, but he did incline his head after a moment. "I am Professor Carnelian. I will be teaching business management this semester."

Now uncomfortable and slightly miffed, Dib aimed a little kick back at Zim. "What a coincidence! Zim's taking business management this semester. Aren't you, Zim?"

Zim didn't answer.

Professor Carnelian smiled, leaning to the side to peer at Zim around Dib's legs. "Is that so? Well," He mused softly as he straightened back up and folded his hands behind his back. "I look forward to seeing you in class, _Zim_."

With that, he turned on heel and walked off towards the elevator without a glance behind him. Dib shook his head as Zim digging his claws into his calves jolted him out of his trance. Kicking his leg out to get Zim off of it, Dib hopped around a bit as the elevator closed behind the Professor. "Okay, what the hell, Zim! Why're you being weird?"

"ZIM IS NOT WEIRD," Zim yelled, and Dib sighed in relief. So Zim hadn't gone completely catatonic. That was good. He guessed. "Take us inside our dwelling, Dib-thing. The walls may have ear-holes," Zim hissed, a spooked look on his face.

"What," Dib uttered as Zim yanked him down the hallway to their dorm and practically broke in, slinging the card through it too hard and bending the doorjamb when he slammed it open.

Zim tossed him onto one of the pitifully bare beds and kicked the door shut behind him with a wary look. Dib grunted and pushed himself up on his elbows with a raised eyebrow. I'm twiddled his fingers, opened his mouth a few times, then shut it with a click. He looked on the verge of a--

_Click. Click. Click._

Oh, yep, that was a panic attack. Eyes widening at the tell-tale sound of Zim beginning to get hysterical, Dib shoved himself off the bed to kneel in front of Zim, grasping him by the shoulders.

"Whoa, hey. Hey, take it easy, Zim, okay? Breathe with me--like this. Yeah, in...out...in...out. There you go."

"Your Earthern atmosphere is repellant," Zim wheezed out, eyes shiny and narrow.

"So you've said," Dib huffed out, a smile tugging at his lips. He pulled Zim into a hug, which the Irken bristled at but otherwise accepted. "You wanna tell me what's wrong now?"

Zim hesitated, the clicking starting back up briefly, before Zim forcibly stifled it. "Ah, it is probably nothing. Zim was just being paranoid."

Well. That was a lie if Dib had ever heard one. He wanted to push, but ultimately decided against it. Zim would tell him when he was ready. Maybe. 

"But," Zim began abruptly, grasping Dib's trench coat by the lapels. "I would advise you to be careful around the Professor from the hallway."

"Why?" Dib asked, bewildered. He pulled back a bit, only for Zim to follow him and bury his face in Dib's coat. "Zim, is there something you're not telling me? Is the Professor dangerous? I can report him if you have eno--"

"NO!" Zim screamed abruptly. He shuddered and huddled closer, the clicking starting back up. "Zim just...would like you to be careful," He said after a moment.

Dib tentatively placed a hand over Zim's wig, going for comforting. "Okay. Okay, I'll be careful. Just promise me you'll do the same, Space Boy."

Zim bristled and hissed when Dib ruffled his false hair, but didn't make to move away. "...I promise."

Standing up with a groan, Dib grasped Zim's wrists loosely too make sure he didn't stumble at the sudden change in height. Dib grinned when Zim glared up at him. "Tell you what, help me unpack and then we'll go for ice cream."

Thin, blue irises narrowed at him. "With sprinkles?"

"With sprinkles."

"And no peanuts?"

"No peanuts."

"...Zim is persuaded."

·♠·

Dib spun his bike keys around his finger as he waltzed back towards the school building. Zim had demanded to be dropped off at his base after they'd finished their ice cream, saying that he had some things to take care of and that he'd make his own way back. Dib whistled a haunting, bouncy tune as he tucked his keys away and pulled out his key card to get into the dorms.

It was a bit colder outside than it was inside, and Dib turned his face up into the pleasant heat with a hum. 

"Hiya, Dib!" A familiar, annoying voice chirped from the couches on the opposite side of the room.

"Heeey, Keef," Dib grumbled as he tried to bolt for the elevator as nonchalantly as possible. Keef just stood up and followed him. Dib swore.

"I was just looking for you! You're taking chemistry this semester, right?"

Dib wasn't going to dwell on how unsettling it was that Keef knew that. He hit the call button frantically and threw and absent, "Sure." Over his shoulder.

Keef smiled and tipped his head. "Well, I heard that there was a new Professor that got sworn in just before the break was over. Apparently Mr. Kutz had an accident over the summer and they had to find a new teacher. Isn't it exciting!"

Pausing in his abuse of the elevator button, Dib turned slightly to raise an eyebrow at Keef. "New Professor? Professor Carnelian? But he's teaching business management."

Keef gasped and beamed. "_Two_ new teachers? Oh--Zim's taking business management! He'll be so excited!"

"Wait, Keef, if--if Carnelian isn't teaching chemistry, then who is?" Dib questioned, a pit forming in his stomach. 

"Professor Iolite!" Keef chirped. "I met him earlier, and he seemed so nice! Imagine, two new teachers just at the start of term. You and Zim have classes with them, ah, I'm jealous. One for each of you!"

Dib thought of Zim's earlier panic, only assuaged by copious amounts of Rocky Road and even then, he was still twitchy. 

Two new Professors. Sworn in just before the year started. In one of each of their classes. One of which freaked Zim out to the point of a panic attack.

That...was suspicious as hell.

Paling considerably, Dib's throat clicked on a swallow and he turned abruptly back around as the elevator opened. He stepped inside and ignored Keef's rambling goodbye as the doors shut, mind racing. 

When it stopped on his floor, Dib swept out into the hallway and strode with purpose to his and Zim's dorm. He slammed the door behind him, practically diving for his laptop, and yanked the top open so hard it made a worrying crick noise. Dib winced but pulled up the school's website anyway. Making quick work of the firewall, he hacked in and began hunting for the names Carnelian and Iolite. 

He found them on the staff roster, but when he clicked on their names--nothing. Just a banner with their name on it and the date they started. Empty, white space filled the screen beneath it. Dib frowned.

"That's even more suspicious," He mumbled as he ran a hand through his hair and tried to dig deeper, only to come up with more fuckall. "Their first names aren't even listed. Just the initials. What the hell?" Dib complained as he ripped apart the school's defense system to look at the President's emails.

And then that--_that_ was something. 

The tragic accidents of Ms. Howle and Mr. Kutz, on the same day that the new Professors were hired. Apparently, they'd both been inexplicably impaled through the stomach and were now comatose in the hospital. A conspiracy theory if Dib had ever seen one. But he had no proof, only speculation.

'_Well shit_,' Dib thought as he leaned back and scrubbed a hand over his mouth in contemplation. '_It's not like I have anything better to do._'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sleepyeule inspires all human Tallest designs :3


	2. From Above

Well. That was a complete waste of time.

Dib fisted the files he'd stolen in his hands and sighed, annoyed. He had woken up early that morning to sneak into the hospital and question the staff as well.

Mrs. Howle and Mr. Kutz had been admitted a few minutes apart, both dumped onto the ground before the hospital doors and left there for the nurses to find. There was no defining mark in either of their wounds, save for that they were probably made with the same type of knife and we're somehow an exact inch to the right of the heart.

No residue, no DNA, nothing to give any other sort of hint as to what had happened to them. Nothing tying either of them to Carnelian and Iolite either, save for the fact that they'd been hired the same day as the accidents. Which, while suspicious, didn't prove anything.

Dib ran a hand through his hair and stuffed the papers into his pocket. He sighed. "I'm probably just being paranoid."

"Oh I don't doubt it."

"SHIT--Gaz! When did you get here?" Dib yelped, eyes wide as they alighted on the sight of his sister leaning against the wall next to the door of his dorm building.

Gaz cracked one eye open to glare at him. She flicked the cigarette in her hand and brought it back to her lips. "Dad sent me. Sent me with a pamphlet for that University in Michigan, that I'm not going to give to you because I know you'll just throw it away."

Hackles raising, Dib crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. "Then why'd you come all the way out here? It's not like you to play messenger."

A scowl twisted Gaz's black painted lips, teeth bared. "I wouldn't _have_ to play messenger if you'd come home for Christmas like you said you were going to." Dib averted his eyes, smothering the pang of guilt that echoed through his chest. Gaz scoffed. "Whatever. You better come home for winter break. If I have to deal with dad's pissed off 'disappointment' for another--"

"Was he there?"

Gaz stopped. She opened her eyes again. "What?"

Dib leveled her with a low look, mouth twisted down. "Was he there? Was dad home for Christmas? You know, like he promised to be _last_ Christmas? Or the Christmas before that, and before that, and before that--"

Chipped nails bit into the filter of her cigarette, snapping it in half. "That doesn't matter."

"Actually, Gaz, yes it fucking does."

"No it _doesn't_, you asshole!" She shouted, throwing her ruined cigarette to the ground. "Because even if Dad wasn't there, _you_ should've been! Because you promised too, fuckface! First you run off with Zim to go study ghosts and all that other bullshit, and then you don't even come home when you said you would."

"Gaz--"

"No! Just--you're coming home for Christmas this time, or I swear to God, Dib, I will burn down this shitty school with you inside it!" Gaz snarled. With that, she whirled and stomped off towards the parking lot, where a white Membrane Labs car sat gleaming the sun. 

Dib watched her go, jaw clenched. Gaz didn't cry. It would be a cold day in hell before Gazlene Membrane got teary eyed, but Dib could tell that she was...upset. Because Dib was a shitty brother that was apparently more like his father than he wanted to believe. Dib scrubbed a hand over his face and groaned as Gaz peeled dangerously out of the parking lot. He could imagine it. Gaz sitting in the living room on Christmas, dad's pre-recorded message a quiet hum in the background as she sat there, alone, with an unlit tree and a present or two beneath it. Nobody to even feel jilted with over cold pancakes.

He'd have to make it up to her. 

Something small crashed into his side and knocked him out of his reverie, a shrill squeal telling him exactly who it was. "MARY!"

"Hey GIR," Dib murmured as he caught the excitable robot around the middle and tucked him under his arm like a football. "Where's Zim?"

"Right here, stink beast." Zim walked over to him, a cautious look on his face. He glanced at the road. "Was that the Dib-sister? What did she want?"

"Just to threaten me within an inch of my life if I skip out on Christmas again this year." Dib rubbed the back of his neck and blew out a breath.

Zim scoffed and flapped a dismissive hand. "Oh, is that all? You know Zim can keep her from the premises if needed, so she cannot actually force you to go to that horrid human gathering--"

"No, Zim, I...I think I'm gonna go, this year." He averted his eyes when Zim stopped to stare at him. "I've been avoiding it long enough, don't you think?"

"No," Zim said incredulously. "Why would you purposefully put yourself through pain with no gain in sight?"

"You said the same thing about my tongue piercing," Dib lamented with a roll of his eyes. He shoved his hands in his pockets. GIR squealed with glee as he was squished. "And the gain is keeping my relationship with my sister from crumbling beyond repair."

"You don't need any other festering humans when you have _Zim_!" He argued loudly, affronted.

"She's family, Zim. As far as I'm concerned, the only family I've got. I'm not gonna give that up just because you're my friend now," Dib said with a frown.

Zim narrowed his eyes up at Dib as they entered the dorm building. "Why not?"

Exasperated, Dib pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "Because what we have is different, okay? Family is different. It's--complicated. I'm close to Gaz in a separate way to how I'm close to you, and our relationship can't fill that relationship. Do you understand?"

A confused, but contemplative look took Zim's face as they walked past the main room and we're sealed into the elevator. "So Zim is _sanalhabi_, but the Dib-sister is _shaqiqeahdi_."

Dib blinked. "I have no idea what either of those words mean, but sure. Gaz is shacki--er--whatever you just said."

Zim nodded once, deep in thought. "Like the Tallest."

"Please don't compare me to your leaders." Dib winced.

"Eh?" Zim looked up, then froze. "Z-Zim did no such thing! You must have the ear-worms, _Dib_," He spat with shifty eyes.

"Uh huh." Dib was less than unimpressed, but he decided to let it go. He knew that Zim's feelings about his leaders were about as complicated as Dib's for his odd family. "So I guess you don't want those special headphones I made for you to take to class tomorrow."

Zim immediately lept and clawed his hands into Dib's belt. "NO! ZIM IS SORRY! GIVE ME THE MODIFIED PHONES FOR HEADS!"

Dib smirked. "That's what I thought."

•♠️•

The next day was the start of classes, and while Dib had chosen mostly night classes, he had a select few that forced him to get up early. He would he taking both Psychology and Chemistry while the sun was still up, because those were the only two that didn't offer night classes. That meant that Dib was up at eight, settling into the lecture hall and nursing a cup of shitty coffee like ambrosia. 

Psychology, though technically part of a bigger course, was one of Dib's electives. It was also the class he was least likely to pay attention to, given that it was his earliest class, and he really had no interest in psychology. Numerous visits to various psyche wards as a child kind of put him off the subject.

The professor, a sweet lady that was liable to pass everybody for 'trying their hardest', predictably gave out no relevant information, as it was the first class period. She handed them a packet printed in comic sans that listed book sources they'd need and had the syllabus stapled on the back. By the time the class was over, Dib had finished his coffee, was marginally more awake, and realized that he could get away with skipping the majority of Psychology.

Dib ducked into the cafe for another cup of coffee before heading to Chemistry. He was slightly more excited about Chem than Psychology, but it was still only the first day. The students didn't want to be back, and Dib knew that the professors didn't either, so the first day or so the professor pretended to go over the syllabus, and the students pretended to listen. Chemistry would obviously be one of the first ones to pick up speed, given that it was a science, but for now Dib supposed he could be content with another droning period and a second cup of coffee.

He swirled his cup. Half. Half a cup of coffee. He sighed.

He wandered into the classroom and took a seat in the second row, at the end, near the door. Even after all these years, even with Zim haven't having tried to take over Earth in four years, Dib still subconsciously chose seats easy to escape from. An old habit he couldn't seem to shake.

Sipping idly at his cup, Dib let his mind wander as the rest of the students filed in and the bell rang. The door slammed shut, and Dib jolted. He looked up to see a tall man striding over to the desk at the front of the classroom. 

"Good morning, _students_. Welcome to Chemistry!" A cheerful, soft voice chimed. A binder smacked down onto the desk, loud enough to echo in the now silent room. "Otherwise known as the hardest course of your lives," The man purred.

"Doubtful," Dib mumbled to himself, but he sat up a little straighter, curious.

The man had chestnut brown hair that fell to the left, hanging down to brush against large, round glasses much like Dib's. They sheened a pair of oddly violet eyes, much more vivid than anything Dib had ever seen. He wore a white button-up beneath a purple sweater vest, a little string bow in the collar of it. Both were tucked into dark gray slacks that clad impossibly long legs that had his body as a whole looking a little...off.

Dib squinted at him. 

"I am Professor Iolite, and I'll be attempting to teach you basic Chemistry. To start, I've put together a starting quiz to see how much you already know. Nothing too bad, of course--just fifty pages!" The stunned silence that followed the professor's statement was deafening. "Oh, and you must finish it by this period or you automatically fail. Good luck!"

"What!" A girl in the back cried.

"Detention!" Professor Iolite declared as he passed out the packets.

"You can't give out detentions in college," Another girl piped up, scandalized as the other turned red in the face.

"Well then, congratulations to you and your friend on being the first two to manage it--and on your first day no less," The professor simpered, the slightest of smirks on his lips.

A chorus of snickers echoed through the room, and the first girl buried her face in her hands as the other sat roughly down in her seat, looking pissed. Dib blinked, glancing between Professor Iolite and the two students he'd just humiliated with wide eyes. 

'_Keef, what the fuck is your version of **nice**?_' Dib thought incredulously as the student at the other end of the row passed down the tests. 

Dib shook his head with a huff and took out his pen. He scrawled his name at the top, then scanned the questions. Nothing he hadn't already expected (at least not on the first page). Giving a mental shrug, Dib got to work. Fifty pages with twenty questions on each was more than outrageous, but Dib found himself a little impressed. Most professors wouldn't have the balls to pull this kind of thing on the first day, and certainly not to this extent. Besides, it had been a while since Dib had felt challenged in his schoolwork. This was a good change of pace.

He glanced around the room once he had finished the first ten pages, and found that most of the other students were still gawking at their packets, some flipping through them like there might be an answer key somewhere within it. He snorted quietly and went back to his own test. 

The simpler questions he shot through easily, having learned a bit more than the basics of chemistry when he was ten with his dad's prompting. But somewhere around the 789th question, they got a significantly harder. The compounds that the questions brought up delved into the realm of theoretical, in reactions that Dib was sure hadn't been discovered yet. 

But Dib had worked in two of the most advanced labs on Earth, one of which held several substances that humans had never even heard of, and in the end, he was able to figure those equations out as well. 

The last part of the test--well, it wasn't _fun_, persay, but it was certainly interesting. Dib was grinning a little when finished up the last question, pleased with himself. 

He set his pen down and flexed his hand with a sigh, rolling his wrist as he pressed a thumb into his palm. He'd gotten carpal tunnel once; he didn't want to go through that again. After soothing the majority of the ache in his hand, Dib looked up at the clock just as the bell rang. 

Professor Iolite looked up from where he was sitting at his desk, legs kicked up on top of it and a book in his hand. His strange, bright thistle eyes blinked slowly at the shrill sound of the bell, and he stood. "Alright, pass your tests to the end of your row and I will have them graded by next class," He called as everyone hurried to leave. "Now. Get out."

•♠️•

Dib walked over to the building Zim's last class was in to pick him up for lunch. There was a window that sat a little higher off the ground than the rest, and it led directly into the history classroom. Dib set himself up beneath it, pulling out his 'little black book' that, instead of detailing his various sexual exploits, held the notes of whatever mysteries he was currently working on.

He twirled his cowlick in his finger and spun it back so it wasn't visible from the window, tufting towards the right of his face instead. Then he hunched over his notebook and went over what he had on the new professors.

"Carnelian was weird, a little pompous, and he freaked Zim out something fierce. Iolite is a hardass, that much was clear from that ridiculous test. But do pompous and strict really mean that they attempted murder?" Dib mumbled to himself. He had long ago accepted his tendency to talk to himself, it was nothing bad, just so long as he didn't do it too much around other people. He tapped his pen against his lip and furrowed his brow. "The timing is really the only factor here--well, that and the fact that their records have jackshit on them. But even if they didn't do anything to their predecessors, I should probably still keep an eye on them. Just in case."

The bell rang, and Dib began to pack his book back away to go wait for Zim on the other side of the corner. There were the scuffles and murmurs of students leaving the classroom, and then an odd noise.

"ZIM IS FEELING UNWELL," Came the sudden screech from inside the classroom.

Concerned and mildly confused, Dib turned to look at the window, only for a familiar alien to come barrelling through it and land on top of him in a heap of flailing limbs and glass shards. Hissing as glass bit harshly into his skin, Dib caught Zim under the arms and lifted him roughly off his person. "Dammit, Zim, what the hell!"

Blinking widely at the sight of Dib, but quickly recovering, Zim grabbed Dib by the arm and yanked, bolting off towards the dorms and dragging the human with him. Dib barely managed to snag his bag, a yelp escaping his lips as he was bodily slung across the sidewalk. He glanced back at the broken window and saw a few bewildered students staring out at them. 

But there, in the doorway of the classroom, lurked the bloody, narrow eyes of Professor Carnelian.

"No time to explain, just run with Zim!" Zim blurted, quickening his pace. For someone so short, he was very fast. 

"Why are we running?" Dib spluttered as he faced forward again so he wouldn't trip.

"NO WORDS, JUST RUN!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can run but you can't hide, Zim~ >:3
> 
> And damn, I started this fic with a vague concept in mind so now I'm trying to characterize the Tallest as I go. They don't get a lot of screentime and when they do they're normally being idiots. 
> 
> BUT! That just means I have a lot of freedom, so be prepared to see me make them as dramatic and edgy as possible. 😆
> 
> 'Til next chap, Dolls!


End file.
